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AUSTIN, Texas — A crowd attacked and killed a passenger in a vehicle that had struck and injured a child, police said Wednesday.

The man who was killed Tuesday night had been trying to stop the group from attacking the vehicle's driver when the crowd turned on him, authorities said. The Austin Police Department identified the victim as David Rivas Morales, 40, of Austin. The child was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The beating began after the car struck the child as it entered an apartment complex's parking lot, said Commander Harold Piatt, who leads the department's homicide division.

The driver got out of the car to check on the 3- or 4-year-old girl and was confronted by several people, Piatt said. When they began to assault him, Morales got out of the car to help and was attacked as well.

The driver got away and is cooperating with investigators, police said. Piatt did not know how many witnesses had been identified but said anywhere from two to 20 people may have participated in the attack.

When police arrived, Morales was lying in the parking lot. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A preliminary autopsy listed blunt force trauma as the cause of death, and Piatt said no guns or knives were used.

Police believe 2,000 to 3,000 people were in the area for a city-sponsored Juneteenth celebration when the attack occurred, though Piatt said he did not know whether anyone involved had attended. The daylong party featured a parade, a motorcycle show, music, food and events for children.

Juneteenth marks the day Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston in 1865 to share news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves two years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863.

Summary : Driver of a car hits a 3yr old girl while pulling into a parking lot. You can bet he has some serious pucker factor going, but at least he stopped and got out to try to help the girl, only to get attacked by the enraged by-standers. His passenger could have run, but he tried to help his friend, and got killed for it.

Between 2 and 20 people? Would being armed even do any good against odds like this, in close quarters? Unless the group scatters after the first shot, I'm thinking the passenger is a dead man, armed or not.

June 20th, 2007, 03:07 PM

limatunes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob The Great

How about when the crowd is trying to kill you? :gah:

Summary : Driver of a car hits a 3yr old girl while pulling into a parking lot. You can bet he has some serious pucker factor going, but at least he stopped and got out to try to help the girl, only to get attacked by the enraged by-standers. His passenger could have run, but he tried to help his friend, and got killed for it.

Between 2 and 20 people? Would being armed even do any good against odds like this, in close quarters? Unless the group scatters after the first shot, I'm thinking the passenger is a dead man, armed or not.

I believe the man would have been justified in trying to defend himself. He had done nothing wrong, there was no criminal intent when they struck the little girl, they got out of the car to help and were attacked (this reminds me of a CSI episode I saw, once).

Anyway, blunt force trauma is not a way to go, and maybe if he had just fired one shot the others would have backed off, deciding to let the police handle it. There is no way to know for sure, of course, and they could have even been enraged further, but it would have given him a fighting chance anyway.

Lima theory, of course. I wouldn't let a crowd beat me to death without trying something in a way of self-defense.

June 20th, 2007, 03:26 PM

Janq

The passenger was going to be owned no matter what.
Twenty on 1 even if armed with a pistol are extremely long odds.

This is pretty much a nightmare scenario.

Leave your buddy to watch from a distance as he is beat down/murdered...or stay and defend your buddy knowing very well that you likely will be beat down/murdered by the same attackers.

Like Lima I'd take my chances, draw, and if necessary take one with me if worst came to worst.

- Janq

June 20th, 2007, 03:30 PM

P95Carry

Nightmare indeed - potentially a ''heads they win- tails you lose".

If however trying to help as a good samariton and then being assaulted by the crowd, hard to see what choices remain. I guess one could but hope that the sight of a gun would perhaps slow things, to the point that a request could be shouted to wait for the cops.

Further advancing aggression could then mean having to make at least one purposeful shot, in the hopes of disuading the rest. Truly nightmare, it really would be.

June 20th, 2007, 03:30 PM

JD

When dealing with a violent MOB with the intent to harm you, as soon as you show them that your not going down alone, things will usually calm down, sight in on the leader, that will usually change the their attitude.

June 20th, 2007, 03:33 PM

Pete

It's a G.O.O.D.* situation...

*Get Out Of Dodge.

June 20th, 2007, 03:35 PM

tapout1003

I believe one shot is all it would take. They would scatter after one of them was shot. That is unless one of them was armed.

June 20th, 2007, 03:40 PM

Pete

Well I do have some experience of this, I was caught up in riots in London and Prague (May Day protests) and I have also been on a train in India that hit and killed someone and was set upon by an angry mob.

All of them were G.O.O.D. situations...

June 20th, 2007, 03:46 PM

FknRa

here is california's answer

197. Homicide is also justifiable when committed by any person in any of the following cases:
1. When resisting any attempt to murder any person, or to commit a felony, or to do some great bodily injury upon any person; or,
2. When committed in defense of habitation, property, or person, against one who manifestly intends or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony, or against one who manifestly intends and endeavors, in a violent, riotous or tumultuous manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any person therein; or,
3. When committed in the lawful defense of such person, or of a wife or husband, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant of such person, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished; but such person, or the person in whose behalf the defense was made, if he was the assailant or engaged in mutual combat, must really and in good faith have endeavored to decline any further struggle before the homicide was committed; or,
4. When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, or in lawfully suppressing any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace.

Seeing the HUGE disparity of force, And having no other safe alternative I would fire a warning shot into the nearest Lawn/Planterbox/Flowerpot.

I know what happens next some won't agree with, some will tell me its not worth the risk. I will NEVER leave a friend who is in the right behind. If I am willing to fight for him, I'm willing to die for him, if I'm willing to die for him, I'm willing to go to jail for him, if it might save his life.

If people will not stop/scatter at the sound of the gunshot, they and they are not trying to stop the beating as well, then they are participants in my mind.

I will do my best to place carefully aimed shots at the people who are actively beating my friend. If I am approached in an agressive manner the aggressor will be engaged.

Like I said I know I may go to jail, but I will not stand and do nothing in the 10 minutes it takes the cops to get there.

If it is available I would try pepper spray first(I buy foggers not streamers) first, but I don't always carry that around.

On a side note I'm wheelchair bound (motorcycle accident) so unfortunatly there will be no jumping in the middle of the brawl for me. It sucks because it limits my responsive options.

June 20th, 2007, 03:49 PM

Bob The Great

Quote:

Originally Posted by 0.02

It's a G.O.O.D.* situation...

*Get Out Of Dodge.

And leave your friend to be maimed or murdered? If it were just me, darn straight I'd be running, but I would find it very hard to leave someone behind, already being attacked.

Seems everyone here agrees deadly force would be justified in a mob attack.

Here's another one though - What if you were rushed like this, drew your weapon and shot the first guy to lunge for you, then watched the guy behind him fall over, leaking blood everywhere. :blackeye:

Would the fact that the second guy wasn't actively attacking you mean you're up the creek? Or would it be a reasonable fear that the entire crowd was attacking you, therefore his presence in the crowd was justification to shoot him?

June 20th, 2007, 03:58 PM

FknRa

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob The Great

And leave your friend to be maimed or murdered? If it were just me, darn straight I'd be running, but I would find it very hard to leave someone behind, already being attacked.

Seems everyone here agrees deadly force would be justified in a mob attack.

Here's another one though - What if you were rushed like this, drew your weapon and shot the first guy to lunge for you, then watched the guy behind him fall over, leaking blood everywhere. :blackeye:

Would the fact that the second guy wasn't actively attacking you mean you're up the creek? Or would it be a reasonable fear that the entire crowd was attacking you, therefore his presence in the crowd was justification to shoot him?

I would be very sad. That is why I practice. That is why I carry HollowPoints to help with over penetraton. I hope he would live. It is one of the risks in EVERY shooting in an urban environment. If you carry the thought of "i may hit someone else besides my target" should always be with you. It is a risk I'm willing to take, and the blame will lay with the aggressor in the situation.

June 20th, 2007, 04:01 PM

Pete

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob The Great

And leave your friend to be maimed or murdered? If it were just me, darn straight I'd be running, but I would find it very hard to leave someone behind, already being attacked.

I didn't say that, I didn't say 'just me'.
Getting out of Dodge refers to any and all members of my party, if you're having problems I will help you, if you're already dead I'll concentrate on my own matters.

But I'm no use to anyone dead myself.

June 20th, 2007, 04:03 PM

pgrass101

0.02

G.O.O.D has served me well over the years. It has been Plan B since I was 12. I just called it RUN AWAY

June 20th, 2007, 04:28 PM

Musketeer

Someone is getting shot.

Mobs are real brave when they have the aura of "immortality" around them. If warned to back of and they didn't I would shoot the one I considerred the "most imminent threat" first. Then the next, and the next untill either I am out of ammo or they flee. Odds are after the first thug goes down they will scatter. If not then I was hosed anyway and at least did not go alone.

June 20th, 2007, 04:30 PM

Musketeer

I hate to ask but we had a similar case in NY where a driver hit a child in a neighborhood and was beaten to death for it. In that particular case there were some "racial differences" between the driver (Jewish) and child/mob (black).